


The Beginning of the Rest of their Lives

by TawnyOwl95



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Coming Out, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27383155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TawnyOwl95/pseuds/TawnyOwl95
Summary: Two young women meet in a coffee shop. It's ineffable.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 80
Collections: Ineffable Wives Exchange 2020





	The Beginning of the Rest of their Lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiddenfires](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddenfires/gifts).



> Written for the Ineffable Wives Gift exchange 2020 for hiddenFires. Sorry it's late and I hope you like it. 
> 
> Thank you to [Jamgrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamgrl/works) for the beta, again. If you enjoy Wives please go and look at her work.

It was a nice evening. All the evenings had been nice that week, although the tang of ozone in the air suggested that a summer storm would soon be rolling over London. The purple bruised sky above the jagged roofline turned navy dark while a young woman sat alone in the Eden’s Gate coffee shop and tried not to worry. Her name was Aziraphale, and she had rather a lot to worry about, especially given the turn in the weather.

Still, nothing to be done about that now. Her choice had been made. She turned away from the window, shifting to get more comfortable on the low bench seat that ran around the wall and tried to find something else to fill her mind. She’d brought a book, but it lay forgotten on the table in front of her. The coffee shop itself was all chrome and exposed brick, although the number of plants on shelves and in hanging baskets did make it feel less like a warehouse. There was art work on the walls too. One particular piece of art. A luminous, dark skinned Eve holding an apple out to an Adam out of frame. Her wide, dark eyes, full of love and mischief and knowing looked upwards towards him. Her fingers were curled elegantly around the apple she was offering, a bite clearly torn from its flesh. The juice of it coated Eve's lips and chin.

There were others by the same artist (a snaky, swirly moniker that could have been AJC, or maybe, ASC?) but that one was the fishhook that caught Aziraphale's heart and reeled her in.

The artist was called Antonia J. Crowley, but she preferred just Crowley. Going by your surname gave a young woman who was all fear and vulnerability wrapped in steel-sharp sarcasm extra weight. Men who sidled up to her in bars or flirted with her as she readied their order were kept at a healthy distance by ‘just Crowley.’ Going by your surname was also something that artists sometimes did and although, to all extents and purposes, Crowley was a barista, she was also, in a way that was more soul bright and true, an artist.

Crowley usually worked the late shift at Eden’s Gate, and she’d spotted the young woman, about her own age, in beige and pale blue looking at her picture of Eve. The young woman who worried her plump bottom lip with perfectly straight teeth and looked terribly alone. The young woman who had wandered into a specialty coffee shop and had the nerve to order a tea. 

Crowley wiped her hands on the towel tucked into her waistband and sauntered over. Not because she was nice or anything. She wasn’t nice. She sensed a sale. And, as a bonus, sometimes nice girls with big eyes and poofy hair liked something a bit dark, sexy and edgy. And Crowley made it a point to appear all of those things. And if she kept selling the look she’d start to believe it. Dark, sexy, edgy girls didn’t get hurt.

Of course, they never fell in love either. Not that they wanted to, of course.

Putting just a touch more sway into her hips than was really necessary, Crowley approached the tea drinker's table. 

“I bet that went down like a lead balloon,” Crowley said thoughtfully, a little bit teasing.

The tea drinker started, glancing up with nervous peeks of her eyes (maybe blue? Maybe green? Certainly dazzling) and Crowley, who swore love was for fools, hoped, at least, that her life was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

The barista had no business walking like that. Not with her mountain of curls as red as temptation and her skin as pale as sin. Her smile as wicked as her tight, black clothing and exposed middle suggested she was.

Aziraphale knew she was staring. Honestly, she’d been trying not to stare since she’d stumbled in here from what now felt like a crazy, forgotten, timeless world. The thing was, Aziraphale had never liked boys. At first she'd presumed this was in self defence as, being bookish and looking like she did, they were not inclined to like her. 

Then she'd see a girl like the barista, and the whole world slowed and softened at the edges. Not that it mattered really. The barista was probably only coming over to ask Aziraphale to leave. It was practically nine in the evening. 

Aziraphale pulled her tea cup in close to her ribs, hoping to hide the fact that it was empty, and probably had been empty for a good hour. She couldn’t hide the fact that the barista had spoken to her, and Aziraphale had been so distracted she’d no idea what had been said. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale managed. “What was that?”

“Crowley.” The barista’s smile widened, she dropped a hand on the table top, leaning slightly, t-shirt riding up further and hip pushing out slightly. “I said, that went down like a lead balloon, I imagine. Can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway.”

Aziraphale blinked. “I’m Aziraphale.” She followed the gaze of those honey gold eyes, caked in too much liner. It made them pop, but it also added to the intimidating sexiness of this waspish, pointy girl who had suddenly decided Aziraphale was worth talking to. “You mean the picture?” she hazarded.

“I mean getting kicked out of the only home you’ve ever known for not following rules that were suspect to begin with," Crowley said coldly. 

“Ah,” a deep inbred loyalty to something Aziraphale wasn’t even sure of anymore reared its head. Words, arguments, instructions, well worn phrases repeated back and forth all lined up on Aziraphale’s tongue. They were cold and hollow.

At her excited inhalation, Crowley’s eyes glazed over. It was a look most people got when Aziraphale started to speak, but in this instance it rather felt like Crowley knew what the party line was, had been told it often enough, and realised it wasn’t an answer at all.

And Aziraphale didn’t want to lose the attention of this dark, shining star. She swallowed, licked her lips. “I think…” she began, because she could think now. She could breathe. “I think that there never was an apple that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.”

Crowley turned back to her, surprised gaze sweeping over Aziraphale from head to foot and back again. Her plum painted lips opened wide. “You what?” she gasped. 

Aziraphale repeated herself. Crowley smiled. “Can I sit down?” she asked.

Crowley slid onto the bench seat beneath the windows, enjoying the pinkening of Aziraphale’s cheeks as she looked away, twisting the cup back and forth. Her brows drew together. 

It wasn't like Crowley to run out of words when there was a temptation to work. She was awkwardly aware of not wanting to mess this up. Crowley would never admit to the very not cool attitude of caring what people thought about her art, but the fact that the tea drinker had understood how Crowley felt about Eve and that apple, and therefore understood a part of Crowley herself, was something that needed to be held on to. 

Crowley panicked. Her attention fixed on the well thumbed paperback. “Any good?” Crowley asked, making her voice smooth and sure. Then she immediately regretted her choice of conversation. Crowley wasn’t a fan of books. Some of the letters swam beneath her eyes, twisting and changing shape as she tried to pin them down. She preferred her stories on canvas. Bold, and bright, or swirling darkness. Like the ones she made in her cluttered little flat, that she’d only taken the lease on because it was on the top floor of the building and had big, big windows that let in sunlight all day and allowed her to glimpse the stars at night.

The question made Aziraphale's eyes light up. “Oh! Yes! Have you read Sappho?”

“No,” said Crowley, who wasn’t entirely sure she’d heard of Sappho. It felt like a trick question.

“Oh!” The light in Aziraphale’s eyes faded slightly.

Crowley was suddenly very sure she'd do whatever it took to bring it back. 

“Well, she is really very good. Very good.” Aziraphale worried her lip again. She took a dip breath and, keeping her eyes on her tea cup said. " _ Gracious your form and your eyes as honey : desire is poured upon your lovely face Aphrodite has honored you exceedingly _ ."

Her eyes flicked up. Crowley was aware of her brave heart giving one last, strong thud before it began to melt. 

Those words sounded good. Sounded good in that gentle, whispery voice anyway. Not that Crowley really understood the entirety of it. She wanted to though because her lack of response meant the tea drinker's smile was losing its colour. “Well, not for everyone I suppose,” Aziraphale glanced away. One solitary tear slid down her cheek.

Crowley froze. The tears didn’t normally start until at least a week after when it became clear she wasn’t actually calling anybody back.

Aziraphale swiped at her face.  So what if Crowley hadn’t read Sappho? 

Aziraphale could read Sappho to her.

Before a fully formed fantasy of picnic rugs, apple blossom and waves of red hair streaming across her thighs could be fully formed, Aziraphale realised that disappointment in love, or lust, anyway, wasn’t the real reason she was crying. The misery of her current situation rolled back and, oh lord, how embarrassing, another tear rolled down her face. She swiped at that one too, but it was too late.  Crowley had spotted her crying. She didn't look concerned or embarrassed, or pitying. She looked horrified. A moment of sheer terror quickly concealed before she said, "I'm sorry, I always say the wrong thing."

"It's fine." Aziraphale fumbled for a handkerchief.

"Doesn't look it."

Aziraphale hid her face while she dabbed at her eyes.

Crowley nodded then fled. Well, that was clearly that. Aziraphale stared at her lap. Tried to get herself back together. She'd find a hostel. London was full of them, and then tomorrow, well she’d go to work and ask Tracy if she could stay in the bookshop a few days.

It was exciting really. She’d been looking for a reason to leave home for years.

A hand with chipped red nails, pushed a scrunched pile of paper napkins into Aziraphale’s line of vision. Then Crowley slid back on to the bench seat on her right, slim hips dodging the pot plants as she did so.

Aziraphale sniffed into a napkin. "That's really very nice.. ."

"Not nice." Crowley hissed the ‘s’ in a way that trickled right down Aziraphale’s spine and into places her mother had frequently told her were nobody’s business but God’s.

The older Aziraphale got the more she found herself wondering why a God, who presumably had so many other things to concern themselves with, would be so obsessed with what young women kept in their knickers. Were he not a supernatural deity he, if he was indeed a he, would surely have been labeled a pervert by now.

An eyebrow, as darkly fire-licked as the tumbling curls on Crowley’s head, lifted. She waited, calm and safe. Aziraphale wanted to do nothing but be truly seen by those big, expressive eyes. Jealously, she wanted to see them without the liner, naked in the hazy light of early mornings. 

"I've just come out to my family," Aziraphale said. The weight on her stomach lifted. "Well, my whole community, really."

"Went down like a lead balloon too, did it?" Crowley flashed her teeth in an awkward smile.

"Oh, yes, rather." The tears had stopped. Aziraphale could manage a conversation. She could.

"Come on then. Tell you mine if you tell me yours." Crowley shifted closer, nudging Aziraphale gently with her elbow. 

“My…?”

“How you came out. It looks like yours was fairly spectacular.”

"Oh!" Well, that cleared that up. And gave Aziraphale a whole new reason to panic. The picnic fantasy returned, but now with the gut wrenching realisation that Crowley may actually have been flirting with Aziraphale, and Aziraphale did want more of it, which meant flirting back!

"Oh," she managed again. 

"Don't have to." Crowley shrugged a shoulder. "I can leave you to it."

And she looked so hurt, so resigned to that rejection, Aziraphale couldn't stand it. "My mum and her friends were playing matchmaker again. They kept telling me he was such a nice boy. I mean that's debatable but the point remained that he  _ was _ a boy. I saw the younger girls watching and just kept thinking how tired of it I was, and how in a few years they'd have to put up with it too, so I said as much. Quite ruined the church buffet." Aziraphale sipped at the dregs of her tea. The shocked faces had been quite funny, now that they were no longer looking right at her. " I can't go back. I don't want to go back." She made her voice firm and tried not to look at the hastily packed duffle bag by her feet. She almost managed it. 

Crowley nodded, her gaze flicking beneath the table too. "I didn't so much come out as kick the door down while screaming."

"Oh, do tell." Aziraphale made herself smile. 

"Just asked questions really." Crowley settled back into a sprawl, all long limbs and insolence. "Questions like, should my step dad be touching my kid sister like that? If mum doesn't believe me, who should I talk to? Of course step dad said I was just throwing accusations around because I was jealous. So, I yelled that I was a lesbian across the foyer of the police station. Probably completely the wrong way to go about it, but I don't care. They didn't deserve me doing the right thing."

Aziraphale’s smile faded. Her fingers tightened around her tea cup again. She wanted to hug Crowley so badly. She seemed flippant about it now, but there was a tightness to her limbs that suggested the hurt still ran deep. Crowley glanced away, and not knowing quite what do, or how to make it right, Aziraphale said the first inconsequential words that bubbled to the top of her brain. "And doing the right thing would quite ruin your image? Rebel, that you are?" 

She’d tried to make it sound teasing, but Crowley’s head snapped up, brows furrowing. Aziraphale’s stomach plummeted. Talk about doing the wrong thing.

Was she being teased? Was this vulnerable little cherub teasing her? Crowley went out of her way to have exactly that rebellious, bad girl image. The ripped tights, short skirts and piercings. 

The snake tattoo on the side of her face! 

Still, she had never expected such a stuffy, fluffy cream puff to be bold enough to actually pull her up on it.

Aziraphale looked absolutely shocked that she had been bold enough to do it too. She turned away. Fiddling with her book.

"I worry I did the wrong thing too,” Azraphale muttered at the table.

"Oh, I don't think you can do the wrong thing,” Crowley assured, amused and inexplicably fond. “Pretty little angel like you!”

Aziraphale looked up, lips parting in a shocked ‘oh’. Crowley burst out laughing.

She was rewarded by Aziraphale's smile. It made her glow. 

"Look, I need to close up," Crowley said reluctantly, "but you take your time. Take all the time you need." 

She’d stop time if she could. Talk to this surprising angel all night. Crowley knew what could happen to people left on London's kerbs like rubbish, she knew what had almost happened to her and what could happen to Aziraphale. Not that Aziraphale looked any younger than Crowley, but she did look more hopeful. More willing to see the good in people. Crowley would hate for her to be disappointed. 

Which had rather uncomfortable implications for Crowley. She thought all the good in her had been crushed into submission years ago. Turned out there was still a spark there, just waiting for the right encouragement to grow again. 

Crowley finished cleaning down the surfaces and watering the plants. She went into the kitchen to get her bag, and slipped out her phone, carrying out a quick internet search before she returned to the cafe.

Aziraphale stood by the door, coat over her arm and the tartan straps of a duffel bag over her shoulder. 

Tartan. Honestly. She would quite ruin Crowley's image. It was refreshing to find that she didn't care all that much. 

They stepped out into the dark together. A few drops of rain hit the pavement. Aziraphale held up her coat, white and soft wool, arms extended so that Crowley was sheltered as well. Horrified at herself, Crowley realised she’d stepped towards the angel even before the offer was made. As though she had been so sure sanctuary would be provided that it didn’t even need to be questioned. It made Crowley feel cared for, and that she was worth caring for. 

"You got somewhere to go tonight?" Crowley swallowed, hoping and fearing the answer. 

"No, it's all rather been burned down behind me." Aziraphale sighed. 

"You can stay at my place, if you like?" The words fell into the night. Lost and afraid. Crowley held her breath. 

"Oh…" Aziraphale looked overwhelmed by that, and ready to cry again. 

"I'm not being nice. I've been trying to seduce you all evening," Crowley muttered. She scuffed her boot on the pavement. 

Aziraphale laughed nervously, there was a glint in her eye though. Something knowing, something challenging that was so exciting and unexpected it made Crowley’s mouth go dry. "I think I was trying to be seduced all evening." 

“Using Ancient Greek lyric poetry?” Crowley managed. 

“Urm,” said Aziraphale.

“You’re lucky Google exists,” Crowley said. “Otherwise it would have gone straight over my head. Come on, this way to the bus stop, before the storm really starts.”


End file.
